New Japan Opposition Party Becomes Active with 18 Members

Tokyo, Sept. 24 (Jiji Press)--The Democratic Reform Party said Thursday that the new Japanese opposition party has started its activities with 18 member lawmakers who departed from the Centrist Reform Alliance.

The 18, all House of Representatives lawmakers, are former members of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Also on Thursday, they formed a parliamentary group in the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, with 29 former CRA members hailing from Komeito. The group is the largest opposition force in the Lower House, surpassing the 28-member group led by the Democratic Party for the People.

The Democratic Reform Party held its first general meeting of its lawmakers the same day, picking Yuichi Goto as Diet affairs chief and Takayuki Ochiai as policy head. Goto, as a representative of the biggest opposition group in the Lower House, will take charge of coordination with the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition.

Of the 20 former CDP lawmakers who left the CRA, former CDP leader Kenta Izumi and Atsushi Oshima, former secretary-general of the now-defunct Democratic Party, have said they would not participate in the new party. But Oshima joined the new Lower House group with So Watanabe, who is now the only lawmaker of the CRA.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]